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Pakistanis are shaming Karachi authorities over their poisoning of at least 700 stray dogs. City officials counter that the canines bite thousands of people yearly, and there is no other way to curb the problem.

The poisoning of dogs got a fierce reaction from social network users, with most of them being outraged at the authorities’ actions.

“Just bloody horrible”, “Spread the word. Shame on Karachi authorities!”, “No more cruelty” were just a few among the angry messages.

Dog corpses were lying along the streets of the 20-million city, and the city employees have been disposing of them.

“At least 700 dogs have been killed only in two areas of Karachi’s south in the last couple of days,” Sattar Javed, a spokesman for the municipal authority, confirmed to Reuters.

Here’s how the authorities kill the strays: they hide poison tablets in chicken meat, and give the meat to the animals.

The Pakistani animal rights activists have spoken out against the practice, but the city authorities said there is no other way to cope with the growing population of dogs, which attack the locals.

According to stats, last year, Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital treated 6,500 people bitten by dogs, and this year saw about 3,700 incidents, according to Dr Seemin Jamali, head of the emergency room, as quoted by Reuters.

Officials don’t have the exact estimates of the total number of strays killed at the moment. However, they say that thousands should be culled in total.